A Beautiful Mind: Meet Bill Koures

By Courtney Lowery, 6-14-05

You have got to meet Bill Koures. He’s a quiet guy, but after a quick handshake, you know he’s out to change things – for the better. I sat down with him awhile ago to chat about the plans he has for his Intermountain Institute for Science and Applied Mathematics here in Missoula but the conversation quickly got into deeper things – econophysics, the need for cross-discipline studies in math and science, his push for a free-market research system and his love for the Rockies.

Koures is a Grecian by birth, but his family moved to Missoula when he was 8-years-old where his mother and father ran Zorba’s restaurant. (His brother Tony, (a trained chemist) will be the one to carry on that tradition. He and his wife have also moved back to Missoula and will soon be opening the Epicurian Bistro a block north of Brooks). Koures grew up with a strong mathematical mind and stayed in Missoula to attend the University of Montana. After graduation, off he went to Colorado for a PhD from CU, to Utah, to California, to Wall Street, to Chicago, to Tulsa, back to New York, back to Utah and now back to Missoula. While away from Montana, he worked for the likes of J.P. Morgan and Mitsusi Energy basically crunching numbers behind the scenes of the energy market, but doing so in an estoric manner involving physics and math and just about everything else I can't understand, let alone explain. At one point, he did some work periphrally with Arthur Anderson, right in the middle of things. "I got to see a lot of interesting stuff when I was in finance," he says with a chuckle. "I got to see a lot of crises up close."

His story is no doubt familiar. (OK, so maybe not the PhD in Theoretical Physics, but this next part …) A standout in his field (econophysics, again don’t ask me to explain it) he figured out he could work from anywhere. He could start his own gig and live where he and his wife wanted to – Missoula.

“I’ve lived in the Rockies most of my life,� Bill says. “Every chance I get, I move back.�

When he returned, Bill started moving on a long time dream of his – perhaps a bit sooner than he expected.

He had always wanted to start an institute for cross-disciplinary studies, a place where the likes of math, science, finances and statistics can combine to form a curriculum that is more suited to today’s converging world. It was his ability, afterall, to problem solve across disciplinary lines that rocketed him to the top during his Wall Street years. Research is no good if it cannot be applied and to apply it, Koures says, you have to learn to cross those traditional academic lines.

The plan was to have an institute first and then develop an academy for high school-aged students second. But when the Roosevelt School came up for sale, Koures flip-flopped the plan.

“You just have to be flexible,� he says. “You can’t wait.�

He used his financial prowess to create a one-of-a-kind offer for the building, but in the end, he didn’t get the building, which for him was just fine. After sitting with Bill for a while you’ll notice that not a lot gets him riled. He’s a passionate dreamer, but not one that blows when the dreams don’t materialize.

Instead, the idea is still alive, sans building, at least for now.

“The ball is rolling,� he says. “Now we have to keep it going.�

The academy, Bill says, will not only distinguish Missoula as a place for the best and brightest, but it will also bring in a population that will inherently have something to offer the region.

“There are a lot of New West-types who want their kids to have the best education,� he says.

The partner institute, he says, would give a safe harbor to brilliant minds bogged down in the non-profit or grant-driven research world. Too often, Koures says, some of today’s best scientists and mathematicians are applying for grants that dictate their research and “playing politics� rather than allowing a free market allow for free thinking.

“You let people use their imaginations and you let the market decide,� he said. “If people can manage their own time rather than playing the grant game, I think it’s a whole new avenue to be explored.�

Editor's Note: This is the second in a series of interviews with folks here in the West. Click on "read more like this" below to read last week's featured "New Westerner." [End of article]